FEyre Archeron has many talents: he can skin a balloon and keep track of a deer, and in the words of a funny fairy who looks “completely delicious”. A poor hunter, Archeron is the opponent of Sarah J Maas’s a Court of Thorns and Roses, or Acotar because it is known to fans. This five-book series belongs to a genre called romantasy, called because it mixes romance and fantasy. And not too much of an exaggeration to say it has the fame of the same combined. Acotar sells more than 13m copies and all five books are in the top 10 best fantasy titles of 2025 to date. If you haven’t heard about it yet, the chances are you find someone reading one on the train, probably hidden under the dust jacket something that is less welcome.
Most romantasy readers are women aged 18 to 44, and part of the genre appeal is the return of gender duties. For example, Archeron couldn’t read. But that was only because of poverty forced him to focus his hunting energy. His unwise to read is therefore a sign of strength. Meanwhile, Maas’s men may live in gorgeous palaces with good libraries with stock, but as the plots develop that they rely on Archeron for their safety.
It’s not hard to see why millions of women are drawn to worlds where female characters are beautiful hunters and men are bookish hunks. Especially if, in reality, only 13% of men read daily, and then most for personal growth than fun. Men argue with self-help and are not fictional and make up only 30% of the fiction purchase market. Romantasy supports the importance of literary men and uses their appeal as sensitive and emotionally intelligent.
Full disclosure: I was one of the 13%, and I was surprised to see that my daily reading tendency could indicate anything but my unworthy of the modern world. I decided to make a trip to romantasy – a search, if you would – to see if there were others that these books would have to teach men about what women wanted. I speak morally, of course, not carnally. Because, despite Acotar’s excessively proud sexual content, Maas is more interested in friendship than any other F-word. In the third book of the series, a court of wings and destruction, for example, by the time the different couples are in bed, it is clear that their bond is more than “rippling muscles”, “corded muscles” or even “muscles covered with intricate and beautiful tattoos”. It’s also about, you know, feelings. The accounts of these books often emphasize their sexual content, as if it were a surprise for women to read love. But what is really surprising is how conservative they are.
Which is not to say that their lead men are backing violets. Both Maas and Rebecca Yarros, in his equally famous Empyrean series, established early that the man’s lead could literally kill his female counterpart. She is the beast in her beauty but, as in the original fairytale, her cruelty is only deep on the skin. To pursue her contact with the main character, she was forced to reach complex trauma that became a sexy monster. Only then can he reveal himself, to borrow a word beloved by romantasy fans, a cinnamon roll. In other words, soft heart, sweet and, yes, delicious. He may be handsome and powerful, but the real draw of the hero is his emotional weakness. Very strong is that readers of the connection make up these characters, in fact, Booktok is full of readers who are crying while reading emotional excerpts. As a girl dropped while reading the tragic end of a court of wings and destruction, “I feel like my family is dying.”
Men find a threat of romantasy – one was taken to Reddit, for example, after he found the secret of his girlfriend’s books: “The fact that these are his fantasies doesn’t sit right with me.” But these books are more about the community than a desire to actually date men of such perfection. A romantasy fan I know, who is happening at the theater work, who finds that Maas’s heroes’ meeting in real life will be a frustration like responding to famous actors: “In fact, they are more stupider than you thought.” However, she found that romantasy had enabled her to reunite with old friends who, after she became a mother, she rarely gets the opportunity to see: “makes the conversation easy,” he said. “I mentioned a scene and we can talk a lot for hours.”
Connections that can be stimulated by romantasy mean they are emerging during the covid. And now that our times are getting more chaotic, readers are embracing the genre like a blanket that is comfortable. Society that describes romantasy are often chaotic like ourselves – Yarros’s fourth wings, for example, are set during the total war. But everyone is given clear duties that make their world, however dangerous, more predictable than ourselves: the scribes reported the news, Infantry fights battles and riders that the dragons fly. And, of course, there is an elaborate prediction that the opponent needs to fulfill.
The ordered world of romantasy sometimes I am uncomfortable. Both Maas and Yarros are obsessed with status. Their heroes may be secretly soft, but this is not an accident they are all title. In the first book of Acotar, for example, Archeron was abducted by an aristocratic fairy, or high fae, called Tamlin. But, when he finds out that Tamlin is a high lord and head of a domain called Spring Court, he begins to find his abduction rather than more ambitious. Despite his physical strength, Archeron’s way of poverty seemed to depend on the men. He can also be in a Jane Austen novel.
But it is possible to take this critical. Readers did not go to romantasy looking for moral editing. Genre fans have codified books according to acronyms such as ETL (enemies to lovers), showing that they are looking for familiar narratives where they can escape. And these novels are noteworthy to absorb.
I spent a happy week with Acotar, washing stacked in the sink, mugs with tea gathering around me so when I was done, I couldn’t be the illusion that I was a warrior king. Or even a particularly good husband. I’m just happy to be a reader.
